Recent Events
Harold Ford Jr. says 'pay barrier' in campaign financing a threat
At the Shorenstein Center brown-bag lunch, Harold Ford Jr., chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council and former member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-TN), gave an overview of a politician's perspective of the media.
Addressing the question of new media competing with traditional news organizations, Ford said that the advantage of new media is that "more perspectives are able to be heard," but that it "doesn't always guarantee that what you're hearing is factually based."
T.H. White Seminar discusses press's role, responsibility
The 2009 Theodore H. White Seminar on Press and Politics took place the morning after Taylor Branch's T.H. White lecture, and brought together a distinguished group of panelists. Included were Dan Balz, political correspondent, The Washington Post; Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; Alex Keyssar, Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; and Renee Loth, columnist and former editorial page editor for The Boston Globe. The seminar was moderated by Alex S. Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center.
Author Taylor Branch delivers 20th annual T.H. White Lecture
Taylor Branch's most recent book is The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, which was based on 79 secret interviews the president gave to Branch in the White House from 1993 to 2001. The author and his subject first met long before, when both worked for McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign. "People have asked me since, did I recognize that Bill Clinton was likely to be a future president, and I said, 'Are you kidding? We lost Texas by 30 points.' "
After the campaign the two parted ways for 20 years, until Clinton, then newly elected, contacted Branch about conducting private interviews throughout his presidency. "If we can keep it secret I'll be candid and we'll tell this story," he quoted Clinton as saying.
Learn more | Audio recording | Video recording
F.T.'s Chrystia Freeland sees fewer news organizations as a 'good thing'
U.S. managing editor of Financial Times, Chrystia Freeland spoke at the Shorenstein Center brown-bag lunch on "Business and International Coverage for a Paying U.S. Audience."
Freeland began with a quote from Warren Buffett: "If cable and satellite broadcasting as well as the Internet had come along first, newspapers as we know them probably would never have existed." She explained that journalism "used to be the easiest business in the world; it's now a really hard business, and the whole way that we're structured editorially as well as commercially doesn't make sense any more."
Percentage of foreign news today is up, says John M. Hamilton
In his Shorenstein Center brown-bag talk, "Journalism's Roving Eye: American Newsgathering Abroad," John M. Hamilton, Dean of the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University, traced the historical and current state of foreign journalism.
Hamilton said that "historically, foreign news has always, always been in short supply," with the exception of colonial America, when overseas newspapers were often reprinted and distributed. The face of international reporting changed, Hamilton said, when news became a "commercial product" and reporters and editors had to specialize in international news.
Problem of punditry is 'uninformed citizenry,' says Kathleen Parker
Kathleen Parker spoke at the Shorenstein Center brown-bag lunch about "The Problem with Punditry," drawing on her experience as a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post Writers Group. Shorenstein Center director Alex S. Jones introduced Parker as one who "thinks for herself, writes like a dream," but Parker called herself a "reluctant pundit."
Parker noted that in the culture of punditry, "you have to be defined as a certain thing … because you have to have a fight, a conflict." Instead of being "thoughtful, nuanced, careful, considerate," Parker said, a successful pundit has to be "provocative and entertaining."
Panel discusses the future of news
At the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, the Shorenstein Center, along with the Institute of Politics, presented "The Future of News," a panel discussion with Robin Sproul, Washington Bureau Chief for ABC News; Alex S. Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center and author of the new book Losing the News; Jeff Howe, contributing editor to Wired magazine and Nieman Fellow; and Marty Baron, editor of The Boston Globe. The discussion was moderated by Tom Fiedler, Dean of Boston University's College of Communication and former editor of The Miami Herald.
Learn more | Audio Recording | Video recording
Transparency needed in innovation policy, says Crawford
At the Shorenstein Center brown-bag lunch, Susan Crawford, Special Assistant to the President for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, spoke about "Analog Policy to Digital Policy: Hope and Change."
Crawford noted how Obama's November 2007 policy agenda on technology and innovation recognized the "essential nature of high-speed communications infrastructure to economic growth, to connecting Americans to their government, to transforming the country in all kinds of ways."
Executive session discusses new business models for news
The Shorenstein Center presented an executive session on "How to Make Money in News: New Business Models for the 21st Century," funded by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The first panel, "Reflections by Carnegie Researchers on New Business Models for News," featured Robert Giles and Joshua Benton, Nieman Foundation for Journalism; Bill Mitchell and Rick Edmonds, Poynter Institute; David Levy, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism; Geoffrey Cowan and David Westphal, University of Southern California. Shorenstein Center director Alex S. Jones moderated the discussion.
Media 'Freak show' polarizing politics, says Politico's John Harris
Politico's editor-in-chief, John Harris, spoke at the Shorenstein Center's brown-bag lunch about "Barack Obama vs. the Freak Show: Politics and Media on the Wild Frontier."
Harris traced the trend of American media from what he called the "old order" when there were a "handful of elite institutions that largely set the filter for what was covered in national politics and the workings of government." While it had its problems, Harris noted, the old order sought to find "common facts." But new technological changes in the media have "demolished the idea of a filter...and common standards of relevance."
Jonnathan Zittrain delivers second annual Richard S. Salant Lecture on Freedom of the Press
Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, began the second annual Richard S. Salant Lecture on Freedom of the Press with a tour of the absurd: A job applicant being mistaken for a computer expert and interviewed live on BBC; a presidential spokesman deciding to continue "on background" in the middle of a press conference, requiring that reporters thereafter describe him as a "senior administration official."
Such events illustrate how journalists can behave when they are "trapped in the script," said Zittrain. While the Internet can be seen as a threat to traditional news organizations, in such instances it "can actually help save [the press establishment] from its own growing mediocrity."
Lack of funding for news a 'serious social problem,' says Jim Hoge
In a Shorenstein Center discussion, Jim Hoge, editor of Foreign Affairs, referred to his own experiences at the Chicago Sun-Times and the New York Daily News to talk about the future of the newspaper business.
Hoge outlined two categories of essential news: accountability journalism, in which the "conduct of public affairs" is monitored by "a vigorous and competent part of the news process," and international affairs, essential in a democracy because "foreign policy rests on a public understanding and a public willingness to back policies."
Joe Klein: Diplomacy 'crucial' in Iran and Afghanistan
Joe Klein was introduced at the Shorenstein brown-bag lunch by Director Alex S. Jones as "deeply informed, outspoken, clear thinking," in covering the "troublesome parts of world affairs." Klein spoke on Obama's foreign policy in Afghanistan and Iran, describing his own experiences in that part of the world as "the most astonishing and compelling" of his life.
Concerning Afghanistan, Klein said that "everything you read about where the [U.S.] government is heading on this issue is wrong." Klein outlined three things that have changed in Afghanistan in the past six months. First, he said, the United States pursued a strategy of counterterrorism, which he explained as "going after the bad guys" instead of counterinsurgency, which "achieves stability by protecting the population."
Garrett 'feels weight' of public feud between Fox and White House
At the Shorenstein Center's brown-bag lunch, Major Garrett, senior White House correspondent for Fox News, discussed covering a historic campaign and presidency, and the "public feud" between the White House communications office and his network.
The feud concerns a statement from White House communications director Anita Dunn about Fox News. Garrett said it puts him in an uncomfortable position "as a journalist … and as a person." "I feel the weight of this on my shoulders perpetually," he said, "and it makes my job harder." He says there is still a "wall … a veil" that obstructs his job as a "simple journalist." Yet Garrett says he doesn't need White House endorsement; in journalism, "everything is accountable on a daily basis" and on television, "on an hour-to-hour basis."
Zuckerman's Media Cloud focused on thorough media analysis
In his Shorenstein Center brown-bag talk, "Media Cloud and Quantitative Analysis," Ethan Zuckerman, senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and co-founder of Media Cloud, explained how his new project attempts to track news coverage over time.
Media analysis in its current state is "really easy to do badly," Zuckerman said, because information transferred through social media can be misleading. Zuckerman told the story of how people used Twitter to promote protests of a recent election in Moldova. A small group of people "re-tweeted" so extensively that the story circulated throughout the Internet, giving the appearance of a great uprising in the country. After inspection of all the media data, Zuckerman was able to trace the source back to the small band of "tweeters" and found the story to be different than its online presence suggested.
Shorenstein Center hosts Washington briefing on health care reform
The Shorenstein Center sponsored a briefing for journalists on health care reform at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. The event featured two panels moderated by Alex S. Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.
Panelists included David Broder of The Washington Post; Linda Douglass, White House Office of Health Reform, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services; Dr. Timothy Johnson, ABC News; Robert Blendon and Theda Skocpol of Harvard University and Kathleen Hall Jamieson from the University of Pennsylvania.
Learn more | Audio recording part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 | Video recording part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
Leonhardt looks at how to raise long-term economic growth in the United States
In his Shorenstein Center brown-bag talk, "How Do We Grow From Here? The American Economy After the Great Recession," New York Times Economic Scene columnist David Leonhardt stressed the importance of maintaining economic growth in the United States and suggestions for increasing it.
It's the "worst recession in a generation," Leonhardt said, estimating that the unemployment rate could reach 10 percent. In this situation, "it's not only easy to worry about the short term, but proper." However, not losing sight of the "big picture" is essential: "We are not sufficiently focused on what the long-term challenges are for the economy."
'Accountability journalism' is at risk, says Clay Shirky
In his Shorenstein Center brown-bag talk, "Internet Issues Facing Newspapers," Clay Shirky described the changing news landscape that has put accountability journalism at risk, and he outlined a "journalistic ecosystem" that is needed to preserve the essential watchdog role of journalism.
Shirky, who writes on social and economic effects of Internet technologies at New York University, said that "newspapers' ability to produce accountability journalism is shrinking," and that these changes are "secular, monotonic and irreversible rather than being merely cyclic."
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Crowley: Afghanistan and health care reform will define Obama presidency
To kick off the fall brown-bag speaker series, on September 15 the Shorenstein Center welcomed Candy Crowley, CNN's senior political correspondent. Introducing Crowley, Shorenstein Center director Alex S. Jones said that she "stands for a kind of journalism that is genuinely endangered but that she fulfills at its highest level."
The title of Crowley's talk was "Obama: Down to the Nitty-Gritty," and she outlined two issues she felt were beginning to define the new president: health care reform — becoming known as "insurance reform," Crowley said — and the war in Afghanistan. These issues are putting "flesh on bones," making Obama seem more like other presidents and less like the presidential candidate carrying a steady 60 percent approval rating.
Amanda Michel
Join us for a brown-bag lunch with Amanda Michel, editor of distributed reporting, ProPublica. The event will take place on Tuesday, December 1, at 12:00 p.m. in Kalb Seminar Room, Taubman 275.